An Imperfect Process (43 page)

Lyssie nodded. "She has to wait until her medical bills get high enough before they start helping. Every six months she has to go through the same thing, so about half the time she can't afford her pills."

Val wished she had known. Maybe if she had been filling Louise's prescriptions, she wouldn't be fighting for life in the hospital.

"You've been very helpful, Lyssie." Dr. Kumar glanced at Val. "A hospital waiting room isn't much fun. Maybe your sister can take you home?"

A nurse entered the curtained area, which was getting crowded. Val said, "Time for us to get out of the way, I think."

Not ready to be dismissed, Lyssie approached the bed on the side opposite the doctor. "Gramma?" Tears were bright in her eyes as she took the wrinkled hand between her own. "Gramma, it's me, Lyssie."

Louise made an agitated movement. Even if she wanted to speak, she couldn't with an oxygen tube down her throat. Val stepped closer. "It's Val, Louise. I'm here, too. I'll look out for Lyssie, so there's no need to worry."

"She... she squeezed my hand." Lyssie's voice broke. "I love you, Gramma."

As Val, Lyssie, and Rachel moved away. Dr. Kumar said, "I'll come out and talk with you when the test results are back."

As they returned to the waiting room, Val watched Lyssie with concern. Now that she had seen her grandmother and asked her questions, she looked ready to drop in her tracks. Illness in a family member was hard for anyone. How much worse for Lyssie, who had seen both her parents die violently?

Hoping Lyssie wouldn't insist on staying, Val said, "How about if I call my mother, Lyssie? She can pick you up here and take you to her house for the night." When Lyssie looked doubtful, Val said, "Since we're sisters, she's your mother, too, though she'll want you to call her Callie. She hates being called Mom. I'll stay here until your grandmother is stabilized, and they're sure what's going on."

Lyssie exhaled, exhaustion in every line of her small body. "If I go, will you call me if... if Gramma dies?"

"If that happens, of course," Val said, knowing that false reassurances wouldn't work with Lyssie. "But more likely they'll say she's doing fine, at which point I'll go home and get some sleep, too."

"If you think your mother won't mind..." Lyssie said.

"She won't." Callie might be a freethinking artist, but she knew how to deal with little girls after years of teaching school. And, unlike Val's father, Callie always came through in a pinch.

She did this time, too. Half an hour after Val's call, Callie breezed into the waiting room like a caftan-clad Valkyrie and carried off a drooping Lyssie with promises of an ice cream sundae for a bedtime snack. Val had come by her cravings honestly.

When Callie and Lyssie were gone, Val said, "I'm glad you came, Rachel, but you needn't stay. You've already gone above and beyond the call of friendship."

"I'll stick around a while longer." Rachel smiled mischievously. "It's a perfect time to talk to you about my career goals. No interruptions."

"Let's find us a couple of comfortable chairs then," Val said wryly. "It will be nice to talk about something I understand."

Chapter 30

The career discussion lasted through two cups of bad vending machine hot chocolate and covered Rachel's career goals and frustrations. It was nearing midnight when Rachel said, "You're right, Val. I like the idea of working in Baltimore, but this job isn't the one. Thanks for helping me figure out what the right job would look like."

Val covered a yawn. "Glad to help. Clarifying issues is one of my specialties."

"Figuring out what people aren't saying is one of mine. What's wrong, Val? Your death penalty case and Louise's illness are good reasons for stress, but I get the feeling that something else is bothering you. Have things gone south with that fellow you were dating? Rob, I think his name was."

Val smiled ruefully. "Got it in one. I swear they must teach mind reading in med school. Do you really want to hear this?"

Rachel smiled, her brown eyes warm with concern. "I really do."

Shifting her gaze to the middle distance, Val began to describe Rob and their relationship. How they had met, how well they seemed to fit together, what an extraordinary man he was. Rachel's brows went up when she learned that his brother was Jeffrey Gabriel, the Avenging Angel, but she didn't interrupt.

Val ground to a halt when it came time to speak of her break with Rob. "It was going really well, until everything fell apart."

"He sounds like a keeper, Val. Or did things fall apart because he's one of your guys who doesn't want to settle down?"

"On the contrary. He asked me to marry him last week." She swallowed. "And instead of accepting, I freaked. It was the closest I've ever had to a panic attack, and I don't know why."

"Is it Rob, or the thought of marriage?" Rachel asked shrewdly.

Val blinked. "I'm not even going to ask how you figured that out. The problem is marriage itself, I think. In the past when I dated someone long enough for marriage to become a theoretical possibility, I'd start feeling it was all wrong and back away because the guy just didn't seem right. This time the guy is right and it still feels wrong, so it has belatedly occurred to me that I'm allergic to marriage, which is odd since I always thought I was embarrassingly eager to march down the aisle."

"You want the full Dr. Rachel opinionated treatment, pop psychology and all?"

Val smiled, thinking how when they were kids, Rachel was always the one who helped the old gang sort out affairs of the heart. "Nothing less will do."

"I think a good part of your problem is your father, or rather your absence of a father. Granted, he didn't entirely vanish from your life. It might have been better if he had. Instead, you were raised able to see him only in a very limited way."

Val thought of her conversation with Lyssie. "To make it worse, I was crazy about him. I love Callie, but we're not much alike apart from our rabble-rouser tendencies. I felt I was a lot more like Brad. Smart-mouthed and analytical and not very imaginative, but at least those were traits I shared with him. It hurt that I hardly ever saw him. When I was in grade school, I wrote him every week."

"Did he ever write back?" Rachel asked quietly.

"He'd dictate a letter maybe once a month. Mostly he'd say things like keep working hard and do well in school, and then he would tell me about my half sisters. I could have hated them, except that they're basically nice girls." Even to a friend as close as Rachel, she had never spoken of the letters. The pain of that had been too sharp.

"The father who wasn't there. Callie was no help—when you were little her boyfriends were like a revolving door. Something deep down inside you interpreted all that to mean you don't deserve a full-time man. Or maybe having a man who isn't around regularly is what makes you comfortable because it's what you're used to."

Val smiled a little. "That made me think of the airline pilot I dated. Great for about two days every two weeks, then out the door. I was crazy about him. I must have gotten involved with a solid citizen like Rob by mistake."

"Well, you did think he was a carpenter. Maybe your unconscious figured that meant enough of a class difference so that you wouldn't have had to take him seriously."

"Ouch. There might be some truth to that. Luckily, Rob defies classification." Val made a face. "Why do smart women do such foolish things?"

"It could be worse. Some women who are only comfortable in limited relationships specialize in married men. They have brief periods of romance and hot sex with none of the mundane details of everyday life. They spend their holidays crying alone, and sometimes when the man actually leaves his wife, the woman ends the affair because having a full-fledged relationship goes way outside her comfort zone. At least you've avoided that."

"Adultery doesn't appeal to me." Val had never told Rachel about her one, long ago, stupid fling with a married man, and she wasn't about to mention it now. "Your theory really resonates with me. Heck, Callie was a role model for keeping relationships with men in a nice little box. But I don't want to live like that. Can you prescribe any pills that will cure me of marriage skittishness?"

"I wish." Rachel's smile was fleeting. "Naming the beast always helps. I think you need to believe that you're worthy of a loving, day-to-day, forever relationship, but that's easier said than done."

"Should I look for a therapist?"

"That's one approach. If you decide to try that, I can give you some names. Or maybe you should start a journal where you explore all your emotional kinks privately. Or you could do both. But I would start by talking to Rob. Show that you're serious about changing. From what you say, he's a listening sort of man. If he really loves you he'll be patient, and maybe he'll have some useful insights."

All good ideas. Val rested her head against the wall behind her, wondering why hospital waiting room chairs were so blasted uncomfortable. Did they think people would stick around a place like this for fun?

Seeing Dr. Kumar approach, Val got to her feet. "Thanks, Rachel," she said quietly. "As you said, naming the beast helps. Maybe now I can tame it." Raising her voice a little, she asked, "How is Mrs. Armstrong doing?"

"She's resting comfortably," Dr. Kumar said. "The embolism damaged her lungs, and she'll need to stay in the hospital for several days, maybe longer, but we're giving her drugs to dissolve the clot. Her blood pressure was sky high and so was her blood sugar, but they're also being treated. Later she'll need some cardiac tests to see how much damage the diabetes has done, but so far, so good." The doctor looked down at her clipboard. "You're Lyssie's sister but not Mrs. Armstrong's granddaughter?"

"Lyssie and I are in the Big Sister/Little Sister program so there's no blood relationship," Val explained. "I don't believe there's any other close family in town."

Dr. Kumar nodded, accepting that "Mrs. Armstrong simply must take her medications regularly. The next time, she might not be so fortunate."

"I'll see to that in the future," Val promised. "I'm a lawyer, so I know how to work the system." And if she had to pay for the meds herself, she would.

Rachel asked a medical question, and the doctors exchanged some technical talk about things like deep vein thrombosis and Greenfield filters and the relative advantages of cheap aspirin over expensive Coumadin for blood thinning. When Rachel was satisfied, Dr. Kumar turned to Val again. "Mrs. Armstrong really wants to speak to you. It's very important to her."

"What about the oxygen tube?"

"She has a tablet and a pen and much determination. I don't think she'll rest until you've seen her."

"I'll be happy to go in. Rachel, do you want to come in or head for home?"

"Home for me. We'll talk tomorrow." Rachel touched Val's arm, then left.

Val followed Dr. Kumar to Louise. "A bed is being prepared in the ICU and she'll be moved up there soon," the doctor said before moving on to another case.

Val pushed aside the curtain to Louise's area. The older woman looked gray and drained, which made sense when she had been flirting with the Pearly Gates, but her tired eyes were much more aware than earlier.

"Lyssie's fine, Louise," Val said. "My mother came and took her home. Between us, we'll make sure she's taken care of until you're out of the hospital. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Louise's eyes closed and the tension in her face eased. In the still room, the soft sounds of the ventilator that breathed for her were unnaturally loud. Thank God Lyssie had been in the house when her grandmother collapsed.

Opening her eyes again, Louise fumbled for the lined tablet lying beside her. Val lifted the tablet and held it in a position where Louise could write more easily with her felt-tipped pen. "Adopt Lyssie when I die?" she printed in large, sprawling letters that filled most of the page.

The message jolted Val like an electric shock. "You're not going to die. Dr. Kumar thinks you'll be able to go home in a few weeks."

The dark eyes looked impatient. "Diabetes hurts heart," she wrote. "Won't make old bones." Next page. "Could drop dead anytime. Want Lyssie safe. Take her?"

Val drew an unsteady breath. From Louise's expression, she must have hoped and prayed that a deep relationship would form between Val and her granddaughter, but she surely hadn't expected the situation to turn critical so soon.